United Van Lines ReviewOffering You Unique Services and Transparent Pricing

By Colin Holmes | December 26, 2018

Bottom line: With full-value protection included on every move, a long list of available services, and the most transparent pricing in the biz, United Van Lines is a top contender your upcoming long-distance move.

What services does United Van Lines offer?

United offers a wide range of both included and paid services to give you the moving experience that best fits your needs. Before we get to the United’s full list of services, however, we want to point out a few notable standouts.

Standout features

Full-value moving coverage on every move

In-home tech support to uninstall or set up home theaters and computer networks

Package pricing online

If you’ve been on the hunt for a mover for long, you’ll know these features are uncommon. We’ll dive into each a little bit later, but first, let’s take a look at the rest of United’s offerings.

Services United Van Lines offers:

Local, interstate, and international moving services

Corporate relocation

Government relocation

In-home moving estimates

Customizable packing and unpacking

Loading and unloading

Home cleaning

Trash and debris removal

Home theater and computer network services

Full-value protection for all moves

Auto transport

Storage

Shipment tracking

Clearly advertised add-on package pricing

Online moving resources

Many of United’s services are included in the price of your move, but others add an additional cost to your final moving estimate. Take a look at the table below to see which services are free and which will require you to expand your moving budget a bit.

Included

Paid

In-home moving estimate

Packing and unpacking

Loading and unloading

Home cleaning

Trash and debris removal

Home theater and computer network services

Full-value protection

Auto transport

Storage

Shipment tracking

Online moving resources

In-home moving estimate

Packing and unpacking

Loading and unloading

Home cleaning

Trash and debris removal

Home theater and computer network services

Full-value protection

Auto transport

Storage

Shipment tracking

Online moving resources

Included

Paid

“United Van Lines is a great option if you’re planning a long-distance move and need to take advantage of one of its unique moving services.”

How much does United Van Lines cost?

Many full-service moving companies make you go through the full estimate process before giving you any pricing information. United operates more transparently than that—it offers both instant online moving estimates and add-on service package pricing without requiring you to provide any personal contact information.

This is a huge break from the norm, since many other movers require you to provide a phone number and an email address before offering you any sort of quote—online or otherwise.

To give you an idea of how much your move might cost, we ran an example move with varying home sizes through United’s online estimate tool.

Here are our results for a 1,100-mile move scheduled about a month in advance.

Apartment size

You pack

United's crew packs

Studio or 1 bedroom

$2,100

$2,700

2 bedrooms

$3,500

$4,700

3+ bedrooms

$4,300

$6,200

Apartment size

Studio or 1 bedroom

2 bedrooms

3+ bedrooms

You pack

United's crew packs

$2,100

$2,700

$3,500

$4,700

$4,300

$6,200

House size

You pack

United's crew packs

1-2 bedrooms

$4,300

$6,200

3 bedrooms

$5,400

$8,000

4+ bedrooms

$7,600

$11,400

House size

1-2 bedrooms

3 bedrooms

4+ bedrooms

You pack

United's crew packs

$4,300

$6,200

$5,400

$8,000

$7,600

$11,400

United bases its online estimates on very limited information, so these numbers should serve only as a rough idea of what you might pay.

Your actual moving quote will depend on your personal in-home estimate and a few other factors:

Your moving date and time

The actual weight of your moving shipment

Your moving distance

Any additional moving services or protection you purchase

Although we can’t break down the specifics about how the first three factors will affect the cost of your move (it depends largely on your local United agent), we can let you know how some of the additional services will affect your moving estimate.

United’s package pricing makes budgeting your move easy

Most movers happily tell you online what extra services are offered, but very few actually tell you how much those services will cost until after you receive your final estimate.

United opts for a more transparent pricing approach with its Straight Talk Advantage program. It outlines six service packages with a range of both moving services and protection options you can customize to your liking—and it tells you exactly how much extra you’ll pay for each package.

Here’s a brief look at each of United’s service packages.

Package

Essentials

Plus 1

Plus 2

Plus 3

Plus 4

Plus 5

Cost

$195

$395

$595

$795

$1,195

$1,395

Additional value protection

$5,000

$25,000

$25,000

$25,000

$30,000

$30,000

Included services

- Claim assistance- ID theft protection

- Services from Essentials, and increased destination waiting time

- Services from Plus 1, and additional delay payment

- Services from Plus 1, and additional delay payment

- Services from Plus 1, and additional delay payment

- Services from Plus 1, and additional delay payment

How many convenience services you can choose

None

1

2

3

4

5

Package

Cost

Additional value protection

Included services

How many convenience services you can choose

Essentials

Plus 1

Plus 2

Plus 3

Plus 4

Plus 5

$195

$395

$595

$795

$1,195

$1,395

$5,000

$25,000

$25,000

$25,000

$30,000

$30,000

- Claim assistance- ID theft protection

- Services from Essentials, and increased destination waiting time

- Services from Plus 1, and additional delay payment

- Services from Plus 1, and additional delay payment

- Services from Plus 1, and additional delay payment

- Services from Plus 1, and additional delay payment

None

1

2

3

4

5

Here’s a quick look at the convenience service options available with each package.

Options for Plus 1

Options for Plus 2 and Plus 3

Options for Plus 4 and Plus 5

Destination debris pickup

PC network disassembly

PC and network setup

Home theater stand mount disassembly

Home theater stand mount setup

Home theater wall mount disassembly

Move-out cleaning service

Home theater wall mount setup

Destination debris pickup

PC network disassembly

PC and network setup

Home theater stand mount disassembly

Home theater stand mount setup

Home theater wall mount disassembly

Move-out cleaning service

Home theater wall mount setup

Options for Plus 1

Options for Plus 2 and Plus 3

Options for Plus 4 and Plus 5

United’s pricing is pretty transparent—it’s just missing one thing…

We love how transparent United is in its package pricing, but we wish it were a bit more forthcoming with how it prices packing and unpacking.

The most useful moving service a company can offer is, arguably, packing up your belongings. But it’s also usually the most expensive service offered. With how transparent United is with its pricing of other services, we think it’s missing an opportunity here to offer the type of transparent pricing you’d expect from a program that boasts its straight talk. We can get a general idea of packing costs based on our online estimate prices from before. Scheduling an in-home estimate will provide you the most accurate price for your move, however.

Apartment size

Cost to pack

Studio or 1 bedroom

$600

2 bedrooms

$1,200

3+ bedrooms

$1,900

Apartment size

Studio or 1 bedroom

2 bedrooms

3+ bedrooms

Cost to pack

$600

$1,200

$1,900

House size

Cost to pack

1–2 bedrooms

$1,900

3 bedrooms

$2,600

4+ bedrooms

$3,800

House size

1–2 bedrooms

3 bedrooms

4+ bedrooms

Cost to pack

$1,900

$2,600

$3,800

Moving companies traditionally charge for packing based on a combination of two things: how long will it take and how many supplies will be needed. The more things you need packed, the more it’ll cost. That’s why larger homes tend to have higher packing costs.

United’s packing service isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition, though. You can also select a few items for its professionals to pack and then pack the rest of your home yourself. The fewer items you select, the less packing will contribute to the cost of your final moving estimate.

Even if you decide you’d rather pack your whole house on your own, United’s crew will still step in to help by blanket wrapping your furniture on moving day. Your local United agent may also have moving supplies for purchase or free used boxes to help you get everything packed.

Be sure to ask during your in-home estimate what supplies your United agent offers.

Moving a lot of tech? United has you covered

United Van Lines has a lot of moving services that take the weight of the move off your shoulders, but one service in particular stood out to us above the rest—its tech services.

United’s tech services are unique in the full-service moving industry. Other movers advertise assistance with appliance installations, but unless you’re taking your gas appliances to your new home, we find these services to be overpriced and generally unnecessary. (Is it really that hard to unplug an electric dryer?)

Tech assistance, on the other hand, is a far more useful service for many households that are looking for a full-service move. United offers disassembly and setup services in two main tech areas: home theaters and PC networks.

Home theaters

If you’re looking to move your in-home cinema to your new abode, United can arrange to have your television and stereo disassembled and set back up in your new house. It can even have its crew take care of your TV stand or wall mount for you so you won’t have to search online for those instructions that you threw away promptly after opening the box.

PC networks

United will also happily arrange to have your computer and computer network disassembled, packed away, and set up at your new home. We find this service to be especially helpful for those who aren’t so tech savvy or who have a particularly complicated network setup.

United offers full-value protection on every move

You read that correctly. United finds another way to stand out and includes full-value moving protection for every move—a service other movers normally offer as a paid upgrade.

If this doesn’t seem like a big deal to you, we promise, it really is.

Full-service movers usually include only basic liability coverage in the cost of your move—and like the name suggests, it’s pretty basic.

With basic liability coverage, the mover assumes liability for $0.60 per pound per item. This means if your 100-pound sofa gets damaged, your mover would pay you only $60, regardless of the sofa’s actual value. United’s included full-value protection, on the other hand, is much more comprehensive.

United calculates your coverage by multiplying your estimated shipping weight by $6 per pound. So for a 12,000-pound move, United would provide $72,000 in moving coverage to cover all of your belongings. Whether your 100-pound sofa was worth $60 or $6,000, it’d be covered under this plan.

If you have a few higher-value items and you don’t think this level of coverage will be enough, United makes purchasing extra coverage easy. Each $1,000 of protection you add will cost you only $5.50.

Movers who are concerned about protecting their belongings—and don’t want to pay an arm and a leg extra to do it—should definitely give United a look.

“Many full-service moving companies make you go through the full estimate process before giving you any pricing information. United operates more transparently than that—it offers both instant online moving estimates and add-on service package pricing without requiring you to provide any personal contact information.”

Our recommendation

United Van Lines is a great option if you’re planning a long-distance move and need to take advantage of one of its unique moving services. Anyone can benefit from United’s included full-value moving protection—but if you’re moving a home theater or PC network, you should definitely consider contacting United.

One of United’s biggest perks is its readily available pricing information. Although its online estimate gives you only a general idea of what your move will cost, we loved how much other pricing information we were able to gather from its website before ever needing to schedule an in-home estimate.

United’s customer service is generally very good, but your experience will depend largely on the United agent you choose to work with. Be sure to look up the agent’s customer reviews online before reaching out to them.

Have you completed a move with United Van Lines? Let us know how it went in the comments below!

About Colin Holmes

Colin is no stranger to moving, having done so five times in the last five years. As a former journalist and documentary interviewer, Colin brings a wealth of research experience to improving your move.

Anna Chilton

WOW! JUST WOW!!!!

My family and I have moved 5 times in the last 11 years. All of these times we have used various moving companies. Our fist experience 11 years ago was with United Van Lines. It was outstanding and everything just shy of being perfect. Since that time we used many other companies as a result of the concern for cost. All of those experiences were decent but pretty much mediocre.

This last move was from West Palm Beach to San Antonio. We paid $10K out of our own pocket to have United to move us. They were not the cheapest but our first experience was such a positive one that we wanted to have that same experience again.

The packing experience was a JOKE! We were sent 2 packers for a 5 bedroom home (3700+sq ft) that was short on the actual packing supplies and had to have one of the packers leave early in the day to get more and they STILL ran out! After 8pm they simply threw items in boxes without any sort of padding or wrapping.

I cannot even tell you how many items were damaged in the move. As items came off the truck we saw item after item damaged. The final straw was when we noticed my husband’s MV Agusta damaged. This is a showpiece motorcycle that he had shipped directly from Italy (it’s only 1 of 57 in the entire US).

We immediately called to let them know that we would have to be putting a claim in on this move (which we have NEVER done in all of our years of moving). We followed every single detail we were told to do to ensure the claim was handled properly. We were told it would take 3-4 weeks to have the claim resolved once it was submitted.

We submitted everything on our end June of 2018. Here it is the week of Thanksgiving and we are just getting it settled. That might sound great, however, they have not only denied items (which we expected to some degree) but they are only paying for 1 item that was damaged on the motorcycle. I was SPECIFICALLY told to break down all of the items on the motorcycle since this was such a unique and specialty item and they would handle it as a separate claim even though it was all in the same original claim.

NOW I’M BEING TOLD THAT IT WASN’T TO BE BROKEN DOWN AND WAS CONSIDERED TO BE ONE ITEM?!?!?! How is that my fault that I followed your orders???

If I want this resolved I will have to take it to arbitration in order to get the additional couple grand that they destroyed out of my bike and how ever many months this will all take to resolve!!!

Trust me – this isn’t over! I’m not just rolling over. Arbitration is definitely worth it for all of the hassle and headache they have put me and my family through.

We were insured for 80K yet they can’t fork over what they screwed up? We are the ones to suffer and we are the ones that will now have to come up with the funds to fix THEIR mistakes and mishandling. And yes, we have pics and documentations for everything so this is by no means fabricated.

We will NEVER use United again and I would advise you to do the same!!!